While the BBEG is planning to take over Netflix (read that again)

[goto124]

What happens when you misread titles!

But it made me wonder... what reasons would a BBEG have for taking over Netflix? Or taking on Netflix, if that's a more interesting way to go about things? What sort of reasons would make it different from taking over a company to get more monies?

The sort of reasons that would involve... the PCs?

[Douche]

I believe drawing attention to spam is against the rules. I got modded for it once.

Anyway, staying on topic & not drawing more attention to it: the BBEG is actually the owner of one of the 6 corporations that control all media in America. He wants to do a hostile takeover so he can control ALL media and indoctrinate the populace into his way of thinking. He wants to censor free speech & expression, and controlling the main sources of all information is his way of doing so. Netflix would just be the first target.

At least one of the PCs would be a journalist who wants to expose this, cuz information should be free and people should be allowed to come to their own decisions about various issues and such. He'd be working to bring this information to light and try to do something about it, which would prompt the evil media corporation to send assassins after him.

Sounds like something Disney would do.

[Geddy2112]

The company that effectively shut down an entire industry, and is more or less the top dog for streaming movies and TV. Which also beats out the need for TV for the younger generations.

They are so ingrained, at least in American culture, that they are part of our language in the phrase "netflix and chill"

Sure, lets go with "planning to take over" and just establish that netflix is a BBEG.

[goto124]

Sounds like something Disney would do.

Sounds like Shadowrun.

Or the cyberpunk genre in general.

[JeenLeen]

I like the cyberpunk/corporate/political reasons above.
Using it for subliminal messages to do <whatever> is another possible reasons. That is a means to indoctrinate people, at least with Batman-villain logic.

Some more supernatural ones:
By displaying a sigil in enough places at once, he can cause <bad thing like freeing a demon or his boss or something> to occur. He tried once before via a viral video on Youtube, but a group of hackers and others who fight him stopped it before it got far enough. Now he has to be more careful, so he hopes to win in one swoop.
The above could actually be a campaign, with the sigil first appearing and 'infecting' several thousand via Youtube, but the PCs find out and stop it in one way or another. It's a race to find out who the Big Bad is before he amasses the power and influence he needs to display the sigil to millions of viewers at once.

Or by owning enough influence, he can ascend to be the God of Entertainment or something. Basically the above, but trade 'display sigil' with 'have influence'.

I'd offer something from Mage's Technocracy, but there's no way in the WoD setting that the New World Order and/or Syndicate wouldn't already control Netflix.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

My thought was subliminal messaging as well. Especially if there's some kind of addictive quality to it to not only keep people watching but get their friends and family watching too.

I guess there's also the chance for media manipulation, casting certain personalities and politicians in bad lights in order to build up resentment, get them removed from office and replaced with people more sympathetic to the BBEG, or prop up others to gain influence.

[Red Fel]

What happens when you misread titles!

But it made me wonder... what reasons would a BBEG have for taking over Netflix? Or taking on Netflix, if that's a more interesting way to go about things? What sort of reasons would make it different from taking over a company to get more monies?

The sort of reasons that would involve... the PCs?

"Get more monies?" How gauche. Of course, that's an impetus, and adding the primary media streaming outlet to my vast corporate empire is certainly going to increase my stock value, but that's just for starters.

No, the real trick of it is bread and circuses.

Have you ever studied ancient Rome, my friend? As the Empire started to decline, those in power placated the people with two things - food to eat, and spectacles to watch. Bread and circuses.

Gradually, I will reduce the cost of streaming media. Not enough to eliminate its profitability, but enough to squeeze others out of the market, and to draw in more customers. Customers who will quickly fall into the pattern of "binge watching," as so many do. Customers who will spend their workdays thinking, not about the situation in the next country over, or the state of politics, or the latest economic bubble, but about their favorite television programs. Who shot J.R.? What will happen to the Doctor? Where will Sam Beckett find himself now?

Every desire satisfied, every anxiety appeased. People will flock to my service, inexpensive as it will be, and it will be their comfort, their warm blanket, their maternal embrace. And in time, as my media reach expands, they won't have to think about the world. They won't have to think at all.

This is how I will conquer. Not with armies, but with indolence. The modern-day bread and circuses.

[khadgar567]

master of evil has spoken

[tomandtish]

Red Fel, you were behind Buy N Large (http://walle.wikidot.com/buy-n-large), weren't you....

[khadgar567]

Red Fel, you were behind Buy N Large (http://walle.wikidot.com/buy-n-large), weren't you....

he is more on dunkelzahn level of evil then just pack the whole humanity into ships so he can find new greener pastures for living stand point hell he is even more lake darkside version of robute guiliman from ultramarines